Emma Watson; What were you thinking?

So I just read an article on Emma Watson's tough struggle in trying to handle both a University life and a career; which she eventually failed miserably at as her career won.

I'm all for education as I am a student myself and even Miss Watson in her latest interview on Vogue.  

In this interview Emma discusses how she struggled with juggling her career and her education and she eventually dropped out of Brown because of work and how she wished she could continue in her education, bla bla bla.

The girl should just shut up;  if she wanted an education she should have either;

1. put her career on hold - In her interview she referred to James Franco and how he helped her.  The thing is, Franco as far as I know isn't involved in a billion dollar franchise, as she is, and so I would have been slightly easier for him to handle.
2. waited for the Harry potter films to end and then went to university.  There is no age limit for education, so she could have went later in life.
3. while still at university, apart from being still involved in acting I wouldn't have added another burden, ie modelling gigs. It's one thing when you can barely keep up with both acting and education and it is another thing when while you yourself are finding it extremely difficult to keep up then you stupidly add another 'career'.

I don't mind that she actually tried to juggle jobs, etc... but it's not like she was low on cash (she has millions in her bank account) unlike other students who have to take up loans and still pay even after they graduated. She could afford putting her career on hold.  Taking Natalie Portman as an example; when she was studying she wasn't involved in many projects and wasn't doing that many magazine covers and appearances, she kept the right balance of work and study.  

Emma Watson was being too ambitious and trying to impress everyone that she is like her character Hermoine, unfortunately unlike Hermoine she doesn't have a magic watch thingy.  Emma failed and instead of trying to blame her bosses she should blame her self and just shut up; the more she talks the more stupider she sounds and the more she shows she was only admitted to Brown University because of her money.  People would have been more impressed if she actually finished school and not dropped out.

Emma dear, you don't impress anyone by looking too ambitious and then falling flat on your bum for failing, because you are a famous actress earning more than what 50 million people put together earn doesn't make you a super being, we are all still human at the end of the day irrelevant of socials status and income.

Arriva! Arriva!

Within less than a month, Arriva will start operating on our small islands.  They have sent brochures and created a site/journey planner for us Maltese to help understand the new system better.  Well, from what I could get it is a recipe for disaster!

1. The fares - they are too expensive to begin with, when one takes into account the average income of a Maltese worker. For about 1.3 Euro 2-hour ticket, when compared to an average price of 47 - 58 cents for an average trip it's quiet expensive, if one is going to stay longer than two hours at their desired place.  The day ticket is a very good buy and also the saver cards.  
2. Saver cards - I am personally looking forward for the saver cards as I hate it that every time I have to search in my purse to pay the fare, in fact my purse is now heavy not because I have a lot of money (I wish) but because I have loads of 1 and 2 euro cents!  However, I find that the saver cards programme needs improvement, firstly from what I could understand (please feel free to correct me) if is Maltese and has a saver card on Malta it cannot be used in Gozo and it applies the same vice-versa; which I personally feel it is stupid especially when taking into account Gozitan workers/students/users who commute frequently to Malta would either have to buy a separate card or a ticket since one cannot use their card.  Also these cards cannot be used at night, so again if one decides to go out the card is useless to have to cough up the money; while in England the Oyster card (which is more or less the British equivalent to our new Arriva saver Cards) don't make such distinction at all!
3. The routes -  the direct routes from several areas in Malta to Mater Dei/University, have been removed, which I find it is an idiotic move from Arriva's part.  If these routes weren't used so frequently I would understand Arriva's decision to remove them, but it isn't the case!  These routes are usually the one's which end up with people standing up due to being used by a lot of people!  Also certain routes have now become longer, such as the one from Valletta to Cirkewwa, which now is going to pass through Bugibba, so that's an extra 15 minutes on the trip at least.  Also many villages according to people's comments seem to be excluded from Arriva's timetables, so it isn't that much of a good news.Also those routes which were left as they were seem to be much more infrequent, then they used to now.

So, my prediction, it doesn't look good.  My main concern is with the routes, Arriva in their brochure advertised that it added a lot of new routes, when in reality it remove a lot of important routes and made such trips more infrequent, which will lead to a lot of people standing up on buses due to resulting in a lot of people waiting to catch the same bus, due to lack of different routes.  The current routes, from my experience, were perfect for the needs of the public, the only thing which they needed was to be more frequent and be punctual.   Arriva, in my opinion, hasn't clearly tried to understand the actual needs of the Maltese consumer and didn't carry out any proper analysis of our current situation otherwise they wouldn't have come up with such stupid routes!  The system may have worked for the English or in other European states, but it won't work here.

The current system isn't that bad, if only our government bothered to train our bus drivers properly and provide with newer air-conditioned buses and more frequent routes, we would have a purely LOCAL bus service to be proud of and we wouldn't have needed a foreign company to interfere in something where they clearly didn't carry out enough research!

Naomi Campell you are such a diva!

So there has been an uproar in regards to a Cadbury ad;

The ad has upset Naomi Campbell and other people apparantely as it is being considered as racist, because she is referred to and is compared with a chocolate. 

Well, personally I just don't see the so-called 'racism'.  The only thing which might be offensive and which only applies to Naomi is that she is being referred as a Diva + the advert features diamonds and we all know about Naomi's involvement in a blood diamond case. 

So I find it is ridiculous that this advert had to be pulled down as it is clear that it isn't racist, but just a reference to Naomi's famous attitude and not her race, skin colour, whatever you want to call it.  I actually feel sorry that people are becoming offended with just the slightest mention and automatically jump to the conclusion that it is racist, especially when in this case the only 'offensive' thing is that it is making a slight joke regarding a woman who is famous for her attitude and her lifestyle!

I guess people have lost their sense of humour, oh well whether the ad exists or not I hope the chocolate bar tastes good!

Blast from the Past

So I was playing this facebook game called Music Challenge and one of the songs that played was The Passenger by Iggy Pop.  I always loved the song, especially from when I heard it for the Up in the Air Movie trailer and so finally I found it and wanted to share it.  Great song, pity we don't get anymore songs like these.  Feel free to comment and if you know of more songs like these please share!
 

TIGI Love Peace & the Planet Eco Awesome Moisturizing Shampoo & Conditioner Review

I consider myself quiet a nutcase when it comes to purchasing skin and hair care products, as I am more of a natural remedies kind of gal rather than just purchasing what looks and smells pretty even if they are filled with chemicals.

After reading a number of articles on Shampoo having as one of their main ingredients Sodium Lauryl Sulphate, which roughly translates in lay-mans terms that our shampoos use the same ingredients as floor detergents use :-S (here is a good articles if you want to know more; Sodiun Lauryl Sulfate in Shampoos The Real Story); I decided to try and find an affordable Sulphate free shampoo and conditioner set.  The results were quiet disastrous.  Here in Malta apart from there not being a lot of health shops which can be easily accessed, the prices of such health products are too expensive for a full-time student; averagely such sulphate free shampoos cost approx 20 Euros for just the shampoo without the conditioner! When it came to searching on the Internet, well it wasn't better either, when one has to take into account shipping charges or the fact that many countries seem to forget Malta in their shipping list.

When I finally gave up hope to finding the perfectly priced Sulphate free shampoo and conditioner set, I googled shampoo recipes; the ingredients weren't that hard to find, however being the sceptical that I am didn't trust such recipes.

After months of searching, by purely mistake while I was looking for another product, I came across a good deal on ebay for the TIGI Eco Awesome Shampoo & Conditioner Set; which cost me about 10 Euros (including shipping) and both being full size.  This makes it my first time using a TIGI product and a Sulphate Free Shampoo.

So is there any actual difference to normal shampoos? Before I used Herbal Essence Shampoos, the new formula isn't in my opinion as good as the old formula in those clear bottles, rather than these funky looking ones. Anyways I usually wash my hair twice a week and I have a really oily scalp, that after the first two days of the wash (i.e. the day when I washed my hair and the day after) my hair would look really greasy, even though I shampoo my hair twice in one wash.  When I washed my hair with the TIGI shampoo, I already noticed a difference, it didn't lather and create as much foam on the first wash as the Herbal Essence Shampoo even with the same amount of product, in fact I usually would use less with Herbal Essence and I would have my hair all foamy.  However, after the second wash the TIGI shampoo did create a decent amount of foam and did feel my hair cleaner.  When it comes to the conditioner I found it to do as good as the Herbal Essence Conditioner, so didn't notice any differences there.

The end result; my hair looked clean and was slightly better manageable.  Many when using sulphate free shampoos are afraid that their hair gets dry, personally I didn't see that.  My hair feels soft to the touch and the good news for me is that two days after the wash my hair didn't look that greasy, in fact I can afford and wait another day before I wash my hair!  So it works great.

Now on to the smell; on the Shampoo it says that it is Cranberry Orange Mint, I found the smell to be kinda weird (my mother did like its smell though), but it smelt natural.  The conditioner also says that it is Cranberry Orange Mint, it smelt slightly more orangey than it's partner.  How did my hair smell?  It didn't have any weird or orangey smell, but my hair does smell nice and it isn't overpowering as my Herbal Essence Shampoo was.

The packaging;  both my shampoo and conditioner are in those 'toothpaste'-like packaging, I read that for the shampoo there is a larger version where you just pump out the product, but mine is the same packaging as the conditioner.  I found it quiet hard to open the cap and every time I fear that I am going to break a nail, so that is the only con in regards to this product.

Would I buy it again? For the same price as I found it definitely and I would even sacrifice a few more Euros to buy it again as it does a good job.  Hopefully I would find affordable prices here in Malta.

Hope you enjoyed your review and feel free to talk about Sulphate free shampoo or any shampoo for that matter. 

Blast from the Past

I saw the movie Jawbreaker (1999) and fell in love with this song and didn't realise that I heard it before in the movie Not another Teen movie.  Great song, love the intro and so I decided to share it with you the readers.

Osama Bin Laden Dead?!

So it is all over the news Osama has been killed and straight away it has been buried.  I personally find it quiet fishy, when unlike when Sadam was killed no pictures or videos have been shown and he was buried at sea immediately within less than a few hours.  Do you believe the news? Do you think it is just BS and lies from the US? Do you think they might have made a mistake?  Feel free to express your views people.